Assistant Minister Hon. Gideon Ndambuki (middle), IREN Director James Shikwati (left), and MATF Manager Ralph Roothaert (right) discuss the MATF approach during the Pan Africa Workshop.

From 18-21st May 2008, the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) held the Pan Africa Workshop in Nairobi on Service Delivery to Smallholder Farmers.

MATF sent three delegates to the workshop: Janet Syombua Mumo, Coordinator of the Kitui Development Centre; Godfrey Mutesasira, Programme Officer of the Community Integrated Development Initiatives; and Ralph Roothaert, Fund Manager of MATF.

Participants came from all over the world to discuss ways of improving services to smallholder farmers to stimulate agricultural production and their livelihoods. James Shikwati, IREN’s director, stimulated everyone to think about how service delivery can be improved through private sector partnerships. The private sector was represented by Syngenta, an international company specialised in agro-chemical and other farm inputs, and by various other local firms.

The meeting was opened by the Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Ndambuki, who talked about the plans of the Kenya government to inject extra funds in the agricultural sector in order to boost smallholder production, and to secure the food situation.

Later on, the Minister and the MATF Fund Manager talked about grant mechanisms for bringing technologies to farmers, while they viewed the MATF poster. The poster depicted the holistic ‘TAESSTI’ approach, which was distilled from the various MATF project experiences.

Click on this link to know more about the ‘TAESSTI’ approach.

Ralph Roothaert
MATF Fund Manager